


Man with a Plan

by lackluster_lexicon



Category: Captain America (2011), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-17
Updated: 2012-01-17
Packaged: 2017-10-29 17:30:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/322362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lackluster_lexicon/pseuds/lackluster_lexicon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony loses his phone and enlists Steve's help.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Man with a Plan

**Author's Note:**

> I've had "Star-Spangled Man" stuck in my head on and off for days. Writing this didn't help, but it was fun. So.
> 
> More movie!verse fluff, but this is after whatever happens in _The Avengers_. And, as indicated in the tags, pre-slash. Possibly part one of a series, but I'm going to wait until I actually write a next part to officially declare that.

For a guy who has diverted disaster on a large scale at least three times in his superhero career, Tony Stark was pretty helpless. If he could have, he would have called Pepper and demanded she come to the Avengers’ new pad – but that, as it turned out, wasn’t in the cards at the moment. And JARVIS had yet to alert him that he was finished uploading, leaving Tony unnervingly disconnected.

Oh! JARVIS was installed in the suit. Duh. He could pop into the armor and…no, that was stupid. Superfluous. He’s Tony fucking Stark. Tony fucking Stark finds the most efficient way to do things and sure as hell doesn’t need help doing them. Most of them.

But…okay. This was getting ridiculous. At this rate, he wouldn’t find the damn thing until Pepper called and yelled at him for missing another board meeting, and that would just spoil his victory.

“Where. The hell. Is it?”

Steve stopped in the doorway to appreciate the scene in front of him. Tony Stark had shucked his blazer, rolled up his sleeves, even loosened his tie…all the more ferociously to tear the couch apart, apparently. Steve couldn’t place what about this scene was so enjoyable, though. He told himself he was just indulging in the mildly sadistic pleasure of seeing Tony beside himself, but he also sensed that that wasn’t entirely true – Steve was the furthest thing from a sadist. But he forced himself to ignore the only other possibility that occurred to him: that Tony was devastatingly attractive, even when he was disheveled. Or…maybe _especially_ when he was disheveled.

Whoa, Steve. Stow those thoughts.

With a bodily _huff_ , Tony tossed the last cushion over his shoulder as he straightened up and ran his hands over his face.

“It’s official. This is ridiculous.”

“I’ll say,” Steve said, allowing himself a smile when Tony startled. “Aren’t you going to buy the couch dinner first?”

Tony surveyed the damage: all three couch cushions and six throw pillows were scattered around the room, leaving the couch itself exposed.

“I’m not even going to dignify that with an answer.” He took a breath as though he were going to continue but then hesitated, holding it. Then he sighed, looking resigned.

“I don’t suppose you have your phone on you?”

“Of course,” Steve answered, pulling the phone from his pocket. All of the Avengers had received one, courtesy of Stark Enterprises, after they’d decided to stay on as a team. It seemed odd for Tony to be asking Steve for his, though…

“Perfect. Toss it here.” Tony extended a hand.

Steve raised an eyebrow.

“What?”

Steve cocked his head, giving him a look that reminded Tony a little too much of Pepper…but not in a way that needed to change. As long as Pepper was off doing Pepper-things and Tony was officially an Avenger or whatever now, Tony needed someone to keep him grounded, and he knew it. And keeping him grounded occasionally meant helping him achieve basic tasks that he would otherwise sidestep entirely or have someone else do for him.

Oh, well. Tag, Steve. You’re it.

Having recognized this, Tony caved. “Oh. Yeah. Toss it here, _please_.”

Satisfied, Steve crossed the room and handed Tony the phone.

“What, you can’t toss?” Tony chided, but his attention was on the phone. “It’s not going to break. I designed it.” Without waiting for Steve’s response, he pressed a button on the side and said, “Call Tony Stark.”

The phone chirped in reply, and Tony whirled on the spot, hands slightly extended, clearly on the alert for something.

Suddenly, Steve understood.

“Oh. You lost your phone?”

“Yeah, a little bit.”

“You didn’t strike me as the scatterbrained type.”

“ _I’m not_. Now will you hush and let me – ”

Tony froze at the tell-tale rumble of a phone on a hard surface, but the ringtone didn’t make sense – it was all kettle drums and cymbals and trumpets. What happened to his AC/DC ringtone? And where the hell was it coming from?

Tony spun around once more, but the phone clearly wasn’t in the room. Steve was already on his way to the kitchen. Belatedly, Tony leapt the couch and followed.

“Did you find it?”

“Yeah,” Steve said, plucking the phone from the kitchen table and handing it to Tony. “But how did you know about that song?”

“Uh…good question. Hold on.” Tony’s stomach did a twirl of its own as he tried to decide if he’d heard what he’d thought he’d heard. Deciding to risk death by mortification on the spot, he raised Steve’s phone again.

“Call Tony Stark.”

Within seconds, Tony’s phone lit up as it began to vibrate. A few seconds of drum rolls and trumpets, and then –

“ _Who’s strong and brave, here to save the American Waaaaaaaaay? Who vows to fight like a man for what’s right, night and daaaaaaay?_ ”

Tony half-smiled, half-grimaced as he shut his eyes. Well, _that_ was embarrassing. He scrambled for an answer to Steve’s question about knowing the song, briefly considering lying. After all, he hadn’t programmed it into the phone; Pepper had, and he knew it. But it didn’t seem right to lie to Captain America for a number of reasons, not least of which was the distressing realization that Tony just didn’t want to. He didn’t know the man behind the stars and stripes, but Steve seemed as honorable as Captain America – and considering that Tony had declared on national television that he and Iron Man were one and the same, it didn’t seem that out of line to think of Steve and Cap as the same guy, either. Which made lying to him tantamount to lying to the entire country or something.

Okay. So no lying. That left…what, the truth?

Oh, hell no. They’d only just settled into an amicable acquaintanceship thing, which meant he and Steve were…oh, a good five to ten years before Tony would even tell him his middle name, much less confess to hero worship. Frankly, as much progress as Tony knew he’d made in the whole ‘having interpersonal relationships’ thing, he still wasn’t ready to get to know _any_ of these people except what he had seen in the field. Getting to know people meant forging connections, and forging connections meant upkeep and maintenance, and anything that had to be maintained would inevitably fall apart or become outdated. It was Engineering 101.

During the few seconds it actually took for Tony to process all of this, he completely forgot to consider what Steve might have been thinking. So what Tony didn’t allow himself to notice was that Steve was a little flustered, too. True, it’d been a while since he’d heard his own theme song, for one thing, and he’d actually managed to forget about his time selling war bonds. Not to mention that he couldn’t believe that song still existed in any form _anywhere_ this long after the war. But what really baffled him was that it was coming out of Tony’s phone. If Steve and Tony’s first…um, _altercation_ was any indication, Tony hadn’t been on the best of terms with Howard. And Steve and Howard had been pretty close. Which would mean that Tony shouldn’t like Steve on principle, right?

“Yeah,” Steve said when the song ended, unsure of how to press on. “That song.”

“Um. I didn’t program that as my ringtone, if that’s what you’re asking.” It wasn’t, not exactly, and Tony knew that. Evasion was one of his many talents, though.

“Clearly,” Tony continued, “someone thought it would be cute to take my phone and leave it where she knew I’d never find it.”

“It was on the kitchen table.”

“Exactly.”

Without warning, Tony tossed Steve’s phone to him, resisting the urge to use the momentary distraction to bolt. Good thing he did, but it wasn’t a distraction at all; Steve caught the phone one-handed, almost by reflex, and never took his eyes off Tony.

“Yeah, so…thanks for the help,” Tony said, already on his way out of the kitchen, rolling down his sleeves. He had to get the hell out of there before –

“Wait!”

Sir, yes, sir.

Steve narrowly avoided colliding with Tony, who – to Steve’s surprise – actually stopped and turned back.

“Whoa, Cap. I thought you advocated dinner first.” Tony grinned as he straightened his tie. He’d had plenty of practice with awkward confrontations and remained steady, even though he suddenly wanted to crawl under the kitchen table.

Wait. Why? It’s just Cap – er, Steve. And Steve’s just a guy, really. Blonde hair, blue eyes – nothing special.

Wow. Steve’s eyes are _really_ blue, though. And granted, most guys don’t have arms like that, but still. Just a guy.

…yeah, right. And Tony’s just the info tech support.

“You didn’t…what?” Was Tony flirting? Is that…what? What’s going on?

Words, Steve. Find them.

“Oh, wow. No, I – ”

Tony scratched his chin as his Cheshire grin widened. So much for words. And _boy_ , Tony sure wears smug well.

“I’ll be damned. You’re blushing. That’s fantastic. Hold on – ”

Tony raised his phone, pressing another button on the side. Steve took another step back, more puzzled than alarmed. He was quickly learning that Tony was an odd fellow. Which may include flirting, right? Maybe it was just a Tony thing, nothing personal.

“There we go,” Tony chirped. “Smile!”

The phone made a clicking sound. Tony turned the phone so Steve could see the screen, and he was immediately even _more_ embarrassed by how embarrassed he looked. His gut reaction was to take the phone from Tony, but even if he did, he’d have no idea how to get rid of the picture short of smashing the thing. And smashing was more Hulk’s trademark.

“That’s going in as your ID pic,” Tony said. He’d finally looked past his own embarrassment to notice Steve’s, and he – unlike the Boy Scout here – was unashamed of the pleasure he found in having the upper hand. Quite the contrary: flirting was almost most satisfactory when the other party didn’t know what to do with it.

Almost, because it was _most_ satisfactory when it ended with a romp in Tony’s considerable bedroom.

Not that he was flirting with Cap. That would be outlandish.

And fantastic.

“My what?” Steve asked. Then be backtracked as he realized what Tony was doing. “Wait, you’re changing the subject.”

For a second, Steve thought Tony was ignoring him in favor of punching buttons on his phone. But when Tony was done, he clicked the phone shut, slid it in his pocket, and returned his attention to Steve.

Fine. If Steve wanted the truth, then he could have the truth. At this point, Tony was sure the embarrassment would be worth it if it meant taking Steve down with him.

“You worked with my dad, remember?” Tony said. “I grew up watching those old newsreels, and I’ve seen all of your movies and read all of your comic books at least six times each. I think I even had a pair of Captain America pajamas…or a sheet set…or some underwear, something like that. The _real_ question is how did _Pepper_ know?”

The air seemed to stir as JARVIS opened a connection with the intercom in the kitchen, sparing Steve the necessity of responding but leaving him to imagine a young Tony in Captain America underwear.

Wait. _What?_ Steve. Stop.

“That would be my doing, sir. Miss Potts was originally considering ‘America the Beautiful.’ Also – upload complete.”

Tony glared at the ceiling. “That would have been nice to know ten minutes ago.”

“You were otherwise occupied. I didn’t wish to disturb you.”

“Yeah, sure. So, ‘America the Beautiful’? Really?”

Tony paused and actually looked Steve up and down. Steve felt his face heat up again. The few seconds Tony was actually silent felt like minutes to Steve as he watched Tony just _look_ at him, and he suddenly felt as though they were actually _seeing_ each other – out of costume, no longer under the pressure of a possible apocalypse – for the first time.

Well…that’s not entirely true. He couldn’t decipher Tony’s expression at all, and it had nothing to do with the temporal dissonance Steve was still trying to shake off. Tony was just an unreadable guy. But he was right in sensing that Tony was reading Steve.

Thing is, Tony himself had no idea what he was reading. He wanted to believe that Steve wasn’t altogether appalled by Tony’s comings-on. Steve hadn’t punched Tony out, hadn’t left the room, hadn’t even pulled a Cap on him and ordered him to keep their relationship professional. He had stayed and blushed and even smiled a couple times because this was Steve, not Cap but Steve, and Tony was realizing that they don’t have to be the same – close, but not the same.

“That would have worked,” Tony finally said, hoping he didn’t betray any of his thoughts. If Steve’s dazed silence was any indication, he succeeded; Steve visibly startled, clearly not having expected more flirtation.

What Tony didn’t notice was Steve’s trying not to swallow his tongue as he watched Tony turn and leave the kitchen.


End file.
